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What do I mean by ‘generative pattern’?

Posted on by Mike Burrows

That question came up recently in our weekly #community Zoom and again afterwards so I thought it would make sense to write it up here. I have two possible definitions, but before I get to those, some lower-level building blocks:

  • Generative and generative process: Generative has two meanings, (i) capable of creating something, or (ii) something with finite rules that when applied repeatedly can produce things of arbitrary complexity (for example the production of language from the rules of grammar; computer-generated art or music). Both of these meanings have some relevance here; I use generative process when referring specifically to the second of those meanings.
  • Generative image: words or images designed both to challenge and to inspire a wide range of possible responses, usually achieved by taking care not to prescribe or otherwise over-specify, perhaps to the extent of deliberately introducing ambiguity or paradox. Two notable examples, beginning with the most famous of them all: “sustainable development” and “Agile Software Development”. Examples from Agendashift include our True North statement, “wholehearted organisations” (best left under-specified), and the assessment prompts (inspired by practice but carefully non-prescriptive); we have others. These examples are all carefully crafted well in advance but they might instead be harvested from the organisation or created through (say) a workshop exercise; one of the earliest exercises in  Gervase Bushe’s The Dynamics of Generative Change (2020) has the objective of crafting a generative purpose statement for the change initiative in question.
  • Generative question: open-ended questions that can be used in a wide range of contexts and generate a wide range of valuable but unpredictable answers, perhaps provoking some insight in the process. Examples: setup questions such as “For this ___ to be really useful for you, it will be like what?” (from Clean Setup) and menus of questions that can be used repeatedly within a generative process, for example “Why is that important?” and “What stops that?” (from Challenge Mapping), and the Clean Language questions (our Clean Language-inspired coaching game 15-minute FOTO includes 8 of the 40+ canonical questions)

Rather like the word generative, the term generative pattern could have several meanings. Literally “things that as patterns recur in different contexts and that are generative”, would do. Then there’s the more specialised, “patterns that combine in a pattern language” – think for example Christopher Alexander’s pattern language for architecture and the facilitation patterns of Liberating Structures.

Agendashift’s usage is tends to be more specific but still compatible with both of those meanings. Usually I’m referring to higher level structures into which which all of the lower-level generative elements mentioned so far can be plugged in. The design community’s double diamond would be an example of that, a recognisable pattern with applicability in a wide range of innovation contexts, within whose overarching structure a wide of generative tools can be used.

The most memorable generative pattern in Agendashift is the IdOO pattern (“I do”, for Ideal, Obstacles, Outcomes) and it meets all of these definitions. It’s clearly a pattern (it’s recognisable in different contexts), it combines with other patterns (even with itself – the landscape of obstacles and outcomes is fractal), and it’s a structure into which other generative elements can be inserted:

  • Ideal: typically a reflection on a generative image and often with the aid of a setup question; sometimes it’s just a question, perhaps with the hint of a generative image embedded in it (see the Outside-in Strategy Review template for at least one example of that)
  • Obstacles: “What stops that?” as a generative question or something more elaborate, the TRIZ exercise from Liberating Structures for example
  • Outcomes: SFBT’s miracle question on its own or as a precursor to 15-minute FOTO, generative question and generative process respectively

What it does of course is keep that generative conversation moving forward in a productive direction. Unconstrained, the random walk might be enjoyable for a while but trust in the process would diminish rather quickly.

Postscript 1

It’s about time I announced the IdOO breakout generator tool. I’ve been using it in meetups for a few weeks now. It’s simple online tool to help you facilitate breakout discussions or personal reflections with the Ideal, Obstacles, Outcomes (IdOO) pattern. These convenience links will take you to first user-facing page with an Agendashift-related challenge already configured for you:

You can also configure it to use a challenge of your own. Read the tips and gave a play!

Postscript 2

Talking of structure, while this post was already under construction I saw in a community forum this from Ian Phillips . With his permission:

…so I know a few people on here attended the MindShift Conference on ING’s. Am reflecting a bit on Jesko von den Steinen and:
  • “There is intuition in your structure.”
  • “Structure your intuition.”

Love that! It took a while for Agendashift’s patterns to crystallise out but it was well worth encouraging that process. After doing it once with the IdOO pattern (and it took much of the time between the 1st and 2nd editions of the book), it got easier. 2MBM took only hours 🙂

Related

agendashift-2nd-ed-sharing-1200x628-2021-02-10

agendashift.com/book (March 2021)

What if we put agreement on outcomes ahead of solutions?

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Agendashift came of age yesterday

Posted on by Mike Burrows

Yesterday was Agendashift 2021, our inaugural conference, and by all accounts it was a big success. I’m hearing words like “inspiring”, “wonderful”, and (importantly) “valuable”, and we got past 400 registrations in the limited number of weeks available for marketing it.

We can truly say now that Agendashift has a life of its own. The conference wasn’t my idea (I always saw it as something that would happen one day, not something I felt ready to instigate), and of the committee members, I was actually the least involved! A heartfelt thank you therefore to Kjell Tore Guttormsen, Andrew Jones, Karl Scotland, and Russ Lewis – outstanding work! My most sincere thanks also to our two keynote speakers Pia Maria Thorén and Gervase Bushe, all our other speakers, and our generous sponsors. So much there, so well presented, and so aligned.

Given that there were two tracks, I haven’t been able to watch every presentation yet. Two quotes of the day stood out for me though. They’re from the Agendashift and Transformation tracks respectively, the first from Dragan Jojic:

Invite people, or invite resistance

The second is from Daniel Mezick:

Agile transformations around the world are epic train wrecks

What ties the two quotes together isn’t just the idea of invitation to participation – Daniel literally (co)-wrote the book on that – but the sad fact that too much of the change industry still sees resistance as something to overcome, not the massive clue that they’re approaching transformative change completely backwards. This is of course Agendashift’s starting point, its big “what if” question and the opening of my introductory talk: What if we put agreement on outcomes ahead of solutions?

2021 is a year not to squander and we won’t be resting on our laurels. The 2nd edition is out, the Agendashift Academy is launched, and the first few participant are approaching the end of Leading with Outcomes, our first self-paced training. Beyond LwO we have a training roadmap not quite ready for publication but it’s already the focus of partner discussions and I’m ready at short notice to do a quick Zoom on it with any prospective partner or corporate client. There’s opportunity too for the partner programme to evolve, allowing partners to deliver a wider range of hybrid solutions with different combinations of self-paced and in-person training, integrated with hands-on client work such that it can be recognised for its developmental value. I’ve no doubt that we’ll see some some real innovation there.

If I may, let me briefly mention another conference, next week’s Lean Agile Global 2021. Not just because we’re sponsors, but because my brand new talk Up and Down the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation will reveal more of where we’re headed content-wise. For some hints of what’s in store, visit deliberately-adaptive.org.

So, once again, thank you everyone who participated yesterday. A milestone moment, the day Agendashift came of age, definitely well worth being there 🙂

Agendashift 2021 May 18th Page Image

One last thank you to our sponsors:

Gold

Silver:

Bronze:

Upcoming

Listed now on the Agendashift Academy’s Store page are our scheduled workshops:

And my apologies: June’s Deep Dive workshop (Americas) must be rescheduled for family reasons.

Always now the self-paced option (and it’s a great option):

Selected appearances by Agendashift partners, me where unspecified:

What if we put authentic agreement on meaningful outcomes ahead of solutions?

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The IdOO pattern as leadership model

Posted on by Mike Burrows

The IdOO pattern (below) is integral to the first two chapters of the Agendashift 2nd edition (March 2021) and also to our Leading with Outcomes and Coaching with Outcomes training (self-paced and interactive workshop respectively). It hardly seems possible that the pattern is only a year old, but this post from April last year really does seem to be my first mention of it.

agendashift-framework-overview-16x10-2020-12-07-idoo

So what is it? Well, it’s at least four things in one, demonstrating its considerable “stretchiness” in terms of the timescales involved:

  • It’s a leadership routine – three or four quick questions, some quick answers, taking just moments
  • It’s a coaching pattern – a higher-level structure to wrap around your favourite coaching tools to bring some strategic perspective – less emphasis on getting to the next commitment, more on the strategic landscape in which options will be developed
  • For facilitators, it’s the overall arc for a string of workshop exercises, whether that’s an hour’s worth or a day’s
  • For consultants, it’s a way to frame a client engagement – as helping them understand where they’d like to get to, what’s in the way of that, and what they might achieve along the way

When taken slowly enough it’s fractal: there may be obstacles in the way of any outcome, and there is always the opportunity to bootstrap the process and identify new ideals at different levels of detail.

This post relates most closely to the first of those uses, IdOO as leadership routine. Here is the IdOO mnemonic not as the structure of a conversation but as an easily-remembered leadership model:

  • Ideal – sustaining a sense of overall direction, connecting people to purpose, helping people find meaning in their work
  • Obstacles – building trust and empathy by recognising the obstacles that people face – their everyday frustrations, the “struggling moments” of actual and potential customers – everything that stands in the way of performance and success; real, relevant, and representative problems that better-designed organisations or products would alleviate
  • Outcomes – keeping at the forefront the goals around which work is organised and to which streams of work are aligned; remembering to celebrate their achievement and to focus the associated learning (both organisational and individual) to the maximum

It’s not a million miles away from my 3-point summary of Servant Leadership. Here in the last chapter of Right to Left I’m channeling Greenleaf, noting what I describe as his “masterful systems thinking”:

  1. The first responsibility of the Servant Leader is to help others to be successful – removing impediments, ensuring that basic needs are met
  2. For people to remain engaged, the Servant Leader must help others find autonomy and meaning in their work, together discovering, developing, and pursuing the organisation’s values, mission, and purpose in society
  3. For this process of transformation to be sustained indefinitely, Servant Leaders must help develop Servant Leadership in others

Right to Left: The digital leader’s guide to Lean and Agile, Mike Burrows (2019, audiobook 2020)

I wouldn’t for a moment suggest that IdOO supersedes any of that (IdOO only scratches the surface of point 3, for example), but it could be a good starting point if you find Servant Leadership hard to grapple with.

Sources

I’ve mentioned my Agendashift (2021) and Right to Left (2019) already; let me mention some other books I’ve referenced in one or both of those:

  • Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness, Robert K. Greenleaf (Paulist Press, 25th Anniversary edition, 2002) – decades ahead of its time and still an inspiration; I re-read it every few years
  • The Serving Leader: Five powerful actions to transform your team, business, and community, Kenneth R. Jennings & John Stahl-Wert (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2nd edition, 2016) – a recent take on servant leadership and a tweak on the language that some will welcome; I’m grateful to Agendashift partner and Servant Leadership champion Angie Main for finding that one
  • Host: Six new roles of engagement, Mark McKergow & Helen Bailey (Solutions Books, 2014) – a change of metaphor and one that brings new insights
  • Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders, L. David Marquet (Portfolio, 2013) – another great book all round; helpful advice here with regard both to obstacles (when and when not to take them away, for example) and to the learning and development aspects of the model

Not referenced but worthy additions to that list:

  • Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything, Stephen M.R. Covey (Free Press, 2006)
  • Demand-side Sales 101: Stop Selling and Help Your Customers Make Progress, Bob Moesta (Lioncrest Publishing, 2020)

I’m currently listening to the audiobook of Covey’s Speed of Trust, good stuff so far. Bob Moesta’s book fits here better than you might guess from the title; it’s a great book on Jobs to be Done, and it’s my source for the the phrase “struggling moments”.

IdOO at the the conferences

Don’t forget the Agendashift 2021 conference on May 18th – not long now! The IdOO pattern will certainly get a mention in my opening introduction (not keynote – that honour goes to Pia-Mia Thorén). And I’m thrilled that Gervase Bushe will be speaking on leadership in the closing keynote. He is the author or co-author of two of the 2nd edition’s key references, The Dynamics of Generative Change and Dialogic Organisation Development.  

Possibly a mention of IdOO in one form or another in my LAG21 talk on the 25th, trust-building being a key element of the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation (see the last couple of chapters of the Agendashift 2nd edition). Agendashift Academy is proud to sponsor that conference too.

Upcoming

Listed now on the Agendashift Academy’s Store page are our scheduled workshops:

And always now the self-paced option:

Selected appearances by Agendashift partners, me where unspecified:

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Announcing 1) our first self-paced training Leading with Outcomes (LwO) and 2) the Agendashift Academy

Posted on by Mike Burrows

academy-sharing

Last week’s little announcement (a rename) paves the way for today’s, big enough that I’ll do it two parts:

  1. Leading with Outcomes (LwO) is our first self-paced training offering, and we’re very excited about it, seeing it as the foundation module for a powerful blend of self-paced and real-time/interactive/experiential learning. And it won’t be the last such module – recognising that some of the new material introduced in the Agendashift 2nd edition is well suited to that medium. We anticipate that by the end of the year it will be possible to do a “hybrid” Deep Dive equivalent over an extended period and multiple modules, both self-paced and interactive.
  2. Agendashift Academy (academy.agendashift.com) is both our new platform for self-paced training and the hub for our training workshops and other public events. It has been several months in the making, a collaboration with Agendashift partner Kjell Tore Guttormsen and Humanize, the Norway-based company of which he is a principal. My gratitude and respect for them is enormous.

The Academy has been hiding in plain sight for a while – among other things it hosts the landing page for our May 18th conference. Well done if you guessed what we were up to! Longer term it gives us a new platform for different kinds of participation: people from a range of backgrounds self-funding their (quite affordable) self-development; the ecosystem of Agendashift partners, their firms, and their clients; corporates using Agendashift in their learning & development programmes.

Before we go any further, a launch offer:

Listed now on the Academy’s Store page are our scheduled workshops, the next one only days away:

Coaching with Outcomes (April and July, for EMEA and APAC – hurry if you want to do the EMEA one) is the interactive version of Leading with Outcomes. They’re a great pairing, LwO doing the groundwork and CwO focussing on the experience, facilitation options, and so on. CwO will evolve this year to acknowledge its self-paced cousin but LwO is not yet a prerequisite. That will change.

Strategic Mapping with Outcomes (also soon – early May for EMEA) is our most popular single-session workshop. It is included in the Deep Dive and is a natural follow-on to CwO and LwO.

The Agendashift Deep Dive (June, Americas) still goes strong, and my feeling is that there will always be a place for something as intensive as this. Some however will prefer the hybrid model and take its equivalent over a period of months. And they’re not mutually exclusive – not so crazy when you know that there are people out there who have done multiple Deep Dives!

You may be relieved to hear that this completes the announcements and followups saved up pending the launch of the 2nd edition of the book. So to finish, let me bring them all together:

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What’s in a name? Coaching with Outcomes (CwO)

Posted on by Mike Burrows

April seems to be for us a month of post book launch announcements. Today’s is smaller than the others but it creates some space for another next week.

A little over a year ago – mid lockdown #1 – we launched Agendashift online: Leading with Outcomes (LwO), a short online workshop of 2 sessions of 2 hours. Now it’s 2 sessions of 2½ but the idea stands: not just to learn about Celebration-5W, Good Obstacle / Bad Obstacle, 15-minute FOTO, the assessment tools, and the rest, but to experience them with other people and to understand how these and similar exercises can be facilitated online.

Today that workshop is renamed to Agendashift interactive: Coaching with Outcomes (CwO). The content remains the same but we need the name Leading with Outcomes for a related product that we’ll announce next week. I’ve left a few clues over the weeks already but watch this space!

We have two Coaching with Outcomes workshops in the calendar currently:

Should you attend this workshop? Agile Uprising’s Mike and Jay certainly think you should (agileuprising.libsyn.com)!

And notice that the list of other upcoming events has exploded. Not just workshops, there’s a sudden flurry of upcoming appearances – no less than four next week, beginning on Monday with my first Clubhouse session. And two conferences in May: our own Agendashift 2021 and then Lean Agile Global 2021 which we are proud to sponsor.

Hope to see you at at least one of these!

 

workshop 2x1

 

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0

If Agendashift is the answer, what’s the question?

Posted on by Mike Burrows

If you’ve seen my 2-minute welcome video for our May 18th conference you’ll know the question already:

What if we put agreement on outcomes ahead of solutions?

What if we don’t do that? Well, the symptoms will be familiar:

  • You’re going through the pain of rolling out a solution and no-one can quite remember why the the solution or the pain is necessary
  • Circular thinking – the solution becoming the strategy – business goals out of the window long ago
  • Beyond solutions, the only expressions of strategy that anyone can remember are vague and uninspiring: “improvement”, “efficiency”, and the like
  • You’re stuck in an endless cycle of disappointing solution after disappointing solution – systems, reorganisations, and so on – none of them living up to their promises 
  • For those or other reasons and more, people disengaging, not seeing the point of it all (if ever they did)

Replace “solution” in the above with “Agile process framework” and you’ll understand some of our motivation. But without any way condoning the incongruent, ironic, and dare I say tragic imposition of something that was meant to engender collaboration, innovation, and other manifestations of engagement, the problem goes much wider and we’re not afraid to aim high!

So let’s get down to business:

Imagine you decided that you would be serious and deliberate about that, determined to keep authentic agreement on meaningful outcomes ahead of all the rest. The right people in the room agreeing to pursue outcomes that matter – needs met, happy endings, the world changed. Great decision, but now what? How do you make that work? What does it imply for your organisation and its leadership?

For me, four big questions follow:

  1. How do we hold those conversations? Who participates? Who’s invited? How are these new kinds of conversation conducted? How are they focussed on the right things? What keeps them on a productive track?
  2. How do we organise that into strategy? How do organise the results of those conversations into strategy that’s engaging, adaptive, proactive, listening as it learns, encouraging the generation of new knowledge?
  3. How do we turn strategy into action? How do we encourage innovation at the edges, solutions emerging from the people closest to the problem?
  4. How do we sustain all that? How do we make it self-sustaining, self-sustaining, such that is works for people, for team, all levels up from there, business agility at every scale?

This is the point at which I say with a smile “Welcome to Agendashift – these are the kinds of questions we like to answer”. Those four big questions or the topics implied by them – New kinds of conversation, Adaptive strategy, Innovation at the edges, Business agility at every scale – they’re a pretty good way to organise everything that Agendashift offers.

Come to the conference and you’ll hear a range of voices speaking into those challenges. If you’re grappling with any of them, or experience any of the symptoms that suggest that perhaps you ought to be doing so, join us. For the manual, you can read the book (the new 2nd edition). And check out what’s Upcoming at the bottom of this post – workshops and other events, all of them speaking to at least one of these themes.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the Thursday Lean Coffee Zoom group (details in #community in Slack) for input on this iteration, and to Karl Scotland for “solutions emerging from the people closest to the problem” (used with his permission in the book also).

Related:

  1. Join us on May 18th for Agendashift 2021, our inaugural conference
  2. Why the Agendashift 2nd edition? What happened?
  3. Out on Monday, the Agendashift 2nd edition

Agendashift 2021 May 18th Page Image

Upcoming

Workshops:

Other events:

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0

Why the Agendashift 2nd edition? What happened?

Posted on by Mike Burrows

In case you missed it:

What happened since 2018 and the 1st edition? Quite a lot actually!

Engagement models happened

It may seem a bit daft to say that one of the things that happened was the foreword to the 1st edition, but it’s true! Daniel Mezick’s use of the term engagement model (a term I hadn’t used) was a gift. It gives us a constructive and generative name for “change through means other than imposition”, it creates an identity for a category distinct from those linear models of change management, and I’ve come to appreciate the distance and differentiation that this affords. To quote from the book:

You can’t upgrade your organisation like you’re upgrading your email server!

The 2nd edition gains a foreword from Pia-Maria Thorén. So glad to make that connection with HR community! Time will tell where that will lead, somewhere good I’m sure.

Lots of small and not-so-small improvements happened

To name just a few:

Patterns happened

The “Agendashift as a river” poster is gone (hands up on that one, it was a mistake). In its place, the figure-of-8 framework picture, with Agendashift’s two main patterns for each loop and the Agenda for Change at their intersection:

Framework image

Chapters 1 & 2 each provide a demonstration of the Ideal, Obstacles, Outcomes (IdOO) pattern. The pattern is discussed in relation to other coaching models and leadership routines – GROW, Toyota Kata etc, and it creates the opportunity for the now much more developed Outside-in Strategy Review (OI-SR) to be introduced much earlier in the book.

By chapter 3 (the Mapping chapter), the Agenda for Change is already well established and much better defined than it was in the 1st edition. It is one of the most-changed chapters, now describing the well-tested string of three mapping exercises practiced since early 2019:

  1. Option Approach Mapping – Cynefin Four Points with outcomes and under a pseudonym (it’s better that way)
  2. Option Relationship Mapping – Karl Scotland and Liz Keogh’s Cynefin-inspired brilliant reworking of Wardley Mapping designed to work with outcomes
  3. Pathway Mapping – ‘Transformation Mapping’ in the 1st edition, Story Mapping with outcomes

I wouldn’t describe either Mapping or the Agenda for Change as patterns but certainly there are patterns in that chapter – describing the three exercises together really helped me see those and I think they will be helpful to facilitators of these and similar exercises.

Chapter 3 is also the launchpad for the Right to Left Strategy Deployment pattern, making it the pivotal chapter. It changes the perspective of chapter 4 (Elaboration) quite noticeably, and chapter 5 (Operation) is completely rewritten. Before that, a smaller pattern, Meaning before Metric, Measure before Method (2MBM), which goes with improvements to the ideation part of chapter 4 (Elaboration).

Covid-19 happened

Let me just quote the Introduction (like chapter 5 this was rewritten from scratch):

Finally, Covid-19 happened. I have a vulnerable family member, and by the time lockdown was formalised in the UK I was already in self-imposed quarantine after a trip abroad. I realised very quickly that my globetrotting days were done and that I had to make a strategic shift online. I found that the change of platform helped me see the material through fresh eyes, and I have been glad of the opportunity to collaborate and experiment rapidly with others. We’re determined to deliver the best possible online experience and this new 2nd edition benefits significantly from what we’ve learned through this extraordinary time.

Stepping back from those technical improvements and personal challenges, it has never been clearer that strategy and ways of working are matters of urgency, and that they need to be tackled in an integrated and, dare I say, wholehearted, way. As the world shifts online, so customer relationships change (and as I observed in Right to Left, so increases the opportunity to learn from them). Meanwhile, the need for individuals and teams to connect both to purpose and to each other becomes critical. The alternative – irrelevance, fragmentation, and alienation – hardly bears thinking about. If instead I could bottle some of the best experiences in our progress since the 1st edition – special moments in workshops, client engagements, community and cross-community events, and smaller, purposeful collaborations – well I’d be a happy man indeed.

Right to Left happened, and Dialogic/Generative OD happened

Right to Left: The digital leader’s guide to Lean and Agile, my 2019 book and 2020 audiobook gave rise to the 1-liner for our mission, “We’re in the business of building wholehearted organisations”.

Right from the earliest days of wholehearted I’ve taken great care not to spoil the generative quality of the word by over-defining it. Nevertheless, chapter 5 does give some shape to the wholehearted organisation via Bushe & Marshak’s Dialogic Organisation Development (2015) (see this 2019 post on my initial encounter with it), the Generative Change Model as described in Bushe’s The Dynamics of Generative Change (2019), and – continuing a journey started in Right to Left –  Stafford Beer’s classic Viable System Model (VSM). Two strikingly different bodies of knowledge there but they work wonderfully well together in a vision of the organisation in which strategy, organisation development, and delivery are integrated through participation. Key quote:

It’s a funny kind of autonomy when strategy is something that happens to you

Right to Left is the also the source of two key elements of chapter 5, the Outside-in Service Delivery Review (OI-SDR) and the Outside-in Strategy Review (OI-SR), the latter introduced in chapter 2 as previously mentioned. In the 1st edition they were only hinted at; I developed them properly in Right to Left. For the 2nd edition I didn’t want to just rehash that material though and so it extracts from them a number of lessons of organisation design and leadership. Clue: the Who’s invited? question is asked three times in chapter 5 alone.

And so to the new chapter 6, Up and down the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation. This was very nearly just an appendix – a reconciliation between Agendashift and VSM – but it grew! Its name is inspired by Kegan & Lahey’s Deliberately Developmental Organisation (see An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization, 2016), which despite my sometimes outspoken aversion to staged development models, maturity models, etc integrates really nicely.

This has been a very rewarding process. We’ve established some deep foundations, learned a lot, tweaked the language a bit, and found that we could say something both challenging and constructive about scale. And nothing broke!

And out of it, something new that might be substantial enough to enjoy a life of its own:

deliberately-adaptive-image

The lines between Agendashift and the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation are perhaps a little blurry but I don’t mind that. If now we’re in the business of building wholehearted and deliberately adaptive organisations, Agendashift is how that happens, ‘wholehearted and deliberately adaptive’ describes what we’re aiming for, and any blurriness is a function of that mission’s internal consistency. I find that rather satisfying.

So yes, quite a lot happened since 2018. Be in no doubt, the 2nd edition of Agendashift: outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation is a big update. It’s available here:

An ePub edition is imminent also – expect to find it very soon on Apple Books, Google Play, Kobo, and elsewhere.

agendashift-2nd-ed-sharing-1200x628-2021-02-10

Upcoming workshops

The long-promised Deep Dive for the Americas is in the calendar at last and we’ve added a shorter Leading with Outcomes for APAC also:

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Out on Monday, the Agendashift 2nd edition

Posted on by Mike Burrows

agendashift-2nd-ed-sharing-1200x628-2021-02-10Thrilled and relieved in almost equal measure, I have the great pleasure of announcing that the 2nd edition of Agendashift: outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation is released on Monday. It is available meanwhile for preorder here:

An ePub edition is imminent also – expect to find it very soon on Apple Books, Google Play, Kobo, and elsewhere.

Make no mistake, this is a big update. Not just three years of refinement and stress testing in the field, we’ve dug deep, established solid foundations, and from there grown in scope, substance, and confidence. Some chapters have been entirely rewritten, a new chapter 6 added. But don’t worry, it’s still Agendashift, just older and wiser 🙂

The list of people to whom I am indebted is long. To mention just a few of those most directly in Agendashift’s development: Dragan Jojic, Karl Scotland, Andrea Chiou, and Steven Mackenzie – there from the beginning, and Patrick Hoverstadt, Jonathan Sibley, Andreas Wittler, Tom Ayerst, Matthew Dodwell, Kjell Tore Guttormsen, and Teddy Zetterlund in relation to the 2nd edition specifically.

Less directly involved but influential, helpful, and supportive (and in parentheses the communities they represent, all of them intersecting significantly with Agendashift’s): Gervase Bushe (Dialogic and Generative Organisation Development), Dave Snowden (Cynefin), Simon Wardley (Mapping), Pia-Maria Thorén (Agile People), Judy Rees & Caitlin Walker (Clean Language both), Daniel Mezick (OpenSpace Agility).

The foreword to the 2nd edition is by Pia-Maria. Daniel’s 1st edition foreword remains; as will be explained in this edition’s completely rewritten introduction, his contains a hidden gift. Sincerely, thank you both.

We’re in business of building wholehearted and deliberately adaptive organisations. If that sentence could one day describe you too, read the book!

PS. While you wait for your copy to arrive, let me recommend the new cheat sheet agendashift.com/leading-with-outcomes-cheat-sheet. Consider it a taste of the first two chapters.

PPS. Likes & comments on this post on LinkedIn would be hugely appreciated. And when the time comes, reviews!

Upcoming

Agendashift™, the wholehearted engagement model
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Leading with Outcomes: a cheat sheet

Posted on by Mike Burrows

To whet the appetite, a cheat sheet for:

Yes, you read that right: March 2021. Publication imminent!

Go to agendashift.com/leading-with-outcomes-cheat-sheet or click on the image below for download information, references, etc. It’s Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA); by subscribing you’ll get not just the PDF but the original .pptx file too – translations and other adaptations welcome. Enjoy!

leading-with-outcomes-cheat-sheet-2021-03-14-v1

What if we put agreement on outcomes ahead of solutions?

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15-minute FOTO version 10

Posted on by Mike Burrows

Quick one: the facilitation deck for our Clean Language-inspired coaching game 15-minute FOTO is now at version 10. Changes:

  1. Added a slide for a quick practice: the two and three most important questions (the questions in bold on the card, the ones that do most of the work in the game) on your most concrete and most abstract obstacles, respectively without and with the What kind of… question (my favourite). You can do it as a facilitator-led demonstration and/or a short breakout (doing both isn’t overkill in my experience).
  2. Removed a slide titled Essential: Launch from a clear challenge, go deep. Essential it might be, but it’s smoother to cover the point while on the preceding slide.
  3. Moved the And when X... slide to improve the flow.
  4. Updated the reference material at the back to mention the now-imminent 2nd edition of the book.

In the past couple of weeks I’ve recorded myself using this version and am much happier with the flow now.

More: Go to agendashift.com/15-minute-foto for tips, download instruction, and an ancient but still fun video.

15-Minute-FOTO-cue-card-2020-09-v16

Agendashift™, the wholehearted engagement model
Links: Home | About | Our mission: Wholehearted | Become an Agendashift partner | Assessments | Books | Resources | Media | Events | Contact | Mike | Subscribe
Workshops: Transformation strategy | Outside-in strategy | Short training
Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

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